West Ada parents, students chalked welcoming messages at schools. Some are being erased
West Ada parents and students are responding to the district’s decision to order the removal of a Meridian teacher’s sign stating “Everyone is welcome here.” On Sunday afternoon, community members staged a Chalk the Walk event, filling sidewalks outside several West Ada schools with welcoming messages, the Idaho Statesman reported.
As of Monday, several of those chalk displays had been erased, according to images obtained by the Statesman.
“As we walked into Renaissance today, we saw that the district had washed away all of the chalk messages from their sidewalks and entrances,” said Ethan Bray, a Renaissance High School student who was involved in organizing the chalk event and a student walkout.
“This is an incredibly disappointing move, and it seems to reinforce their apparent lack of care for the issue,” Bray said in a statement shared by Babe Vote, a youth-led voter drive group. “To be clear, the school district can erase our welcoming messages but it cannot erase our voices.”
Images shared with the Statesman by Babe Vote showed individuals using hoses to wash chalk outside the district’s administrative office in Meridian, too. Another photo showed a power-washing company’s truck parked outside the office.
Christina Patterson, a parent and volunteer at Seven Oaks Elementary School in Eagle, reached out to the Statesman to report that some chalk messages outside that school had been cleaned off as well.
Babe Vote also pointed the Statesman to a Facebook post by Alicia Purdy, a teacher who lives in the West Ada district, that included a screenshot of an email describing the chalk and paint writing as “vandalism.” Purdy told the Statesman by phone that the email was sent from the district to school custodians across the district.
The district later provided a different explanation.
“Chalk markings on sidewalks on our campuses were washed off intentionally to prevent the material from being tracked inside and potentially damaging carpets and other interior surfaces,” Niki Scheppers, West Ada’s chief of staff and communications, told the Statesman in an email.
Scheppers wrote that some paint had also been used. “Chalk art in parking lots and parking stalls was not removed and remains in place, along with any paint markings,” Scheppers wrote. “Our maintenance teams are currently working to remove the paint, which is more difficult to clean and presents a greater challenge in maintaining our facilities.”
Purdy told the Statesman that she attended the event at the district office Sunday and saw spray paint on asphalt in the parking lot and driveway, but none on sidewalks or on the building.
Finn Angelopoulos, another Renaissance High student who helped organize the chalk event, responded to the district’s rationale for removing the chalk in a statement shared by Babe Vote: “They chalk all the time for student welcomes and IB [International Baccalaureate] exams, but they don’t power wash messages off then.”
Community gathers for ‘Chalk the Walk’ event
In February, Lewis and Clark Middle School teacher Sarah Inama was told by district officials to take down a sign from her classroom that stated “Everyone is welcome here,” above hands with different skin tones.
After the 35-year-old world civilization teacher went public with her story, the district maintained that the sign violated policy on “content-neutral classrooms” — not because of its welcoming message, but because of its depiction of different skin tones, which could be associated with “DEI initiatives,” Scheppers told the Statesman.
Hundreds of people gathered at West Ada’s administrative office in Meridian on Sunday to chalk welcoming messages in support of Inama’s sign, the Statesman reported. Dozens of others went to schools across the district to do the same.
Purdy said she was “inspired” by the event, in particular by students involved, some of whom engaged with an individual who appeared to be protesting the gathering. “It was so incredibly enlightening to see them conducting themselves with integrity and civilly and just having those wonderful conversations that I think needed taking place across our state,” she said.
Below are photographs from the Chalk the Walk event taken at the district office and at Lewis and Clark Middle School in Meridian.
This story was originally published March 24, 2025 at 2:39 PM.
